Comedy and music joined forces for one super-duper edition of Comedy Below Canal™ at 92YTribeca last week. Christian Finnegan, Pete Correale, Helen Hong, Jerrod Carmichael, Judah Friedlander and Amy Miles were all present on stage. A photo gallery is not much consolation if you missed it, but here it is anyways!

We rounded up a bunch of cartoonists for the latest FISTICUFFS! at 92YTribeca and put them into opposing teams who battled it out the only way cartoonists know how to battle—by drawing cartoons! It is “an Iron Chef-like battle of the cartoonists,” as The New York Observerobserved.

Last week’s show featured cartoonists Hilary Price (Rhymes with Orange), Eric Lewis (Animal Nuz, The New Yorker), Matt Diffee (The Rejection Collection, The New Yorker) and Drew Dernavich (The New Yorker), hosted by writer and comedian Patrick Borelli (Comedy Central, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon"). There was also be a surprise musical guest, Howard Fishman and band. Our favorite cartoon from the night? That would have to Matt Diffee’s presentation, his Texas Dashboard Organizer. Check out a complete photo album from the evening on 92YTribeca’s Flickr page.

Helen Hong is a New York City comedian. “I got the name Helen,” she explains on her website, “because my first-grade teacher couldn’t pronounce my Korean name (Hae-Seung — don’t try it, you’ll hurt yourself) and after repeated mangled attempts, my mother went ‘That’s okay, just call her Helen.’”

That’s Helen in the video above doing the first hilarious episode of “Mad as Helen.”

“Strange Acquaintance,” the latest RISK! podcast (from 12/14) is available online as a free download at iTunes. The first story, told by Rob Delaney, will make you LOL. It is Not Safe For Work, so you might want to use headphones. “Why Can’t We Be Friends,” around half way through, was recorded at 92YTribeca and told by David Crabb (in photo at left). It’s hard to describe the story except to say it is incredibly compelling. You really should listen to it yourself.

You can see RISK! live at 92YTribeca this January 6. The show will features live stories from Ophira Eisenberg (The Moth, The Liar Show), Christian Finnegan (Best Week Ever) and Stuckey & Murray (Stuckey & Murray Perform the Songs of Stuckey & Murray).

That’s performer David Crabb at 92YTribeca during last week’s RISK! show. Joining him were Sara Barron, Dave Hill, Melanie Hamlett, Michelle Walson and Kevin Allison. Check out a few more photos on 92YTribeca’s Flickr page.

The lineup for the next installment of the much loved RISK! series, In Harm’s Way, JUST flew over the transom. Scheduled to be here at 92YTribeca this Thursday, October 14 are Andrea Rosen, Tim Ellis, Eliot Glazer, Mike Canillo and Joy Gabriel. Hosted as always by Kevin Allison. As DJ Paully Delvecchio would say: ”Awww Yeaaahhhh.”

RISK! is a show (ECNY Award-winning show for Best Variety Show!) where people tell true stories they never thought they’d dare to share, live on stage. Featuring some of the brightest actors, writers and comedians around, Kevin Allison kicked of his inaugural show last week at 92YTribeca with Emily Gould, Kurt Braunohler, Matt Higgins and Joe Mande (seen above). Catch the next show in the series on October 14 with RISK! In Harm’s Way.

As seen in the photo slide above, comedian Rory Scove and the Comedy Below Canal™ crew performed at 92YTribeca last Thursday with Sara Schaefer, Scott Moran, Andy Haynes and Nate Bargatze.

Comedy Below Canal™ returns this Thursday, August 7, with Hari Kondabolu, Joe Mande, Greg Walloch and Musical Guest Corn Mo. When we told a friend that Corn Mo would be there, he was all, “whose Corn Mo?” We were like, wha? In case you aren’t familiar with Corn Mo, you can get familiar below, with video of him performing Never Say Goodbye at the Canal Room.

The News Distillery is a live news-comedy game show hosted by Faith Salie, CBS Sunday Morning contributor and star of Planet Green’s Treehugger TV. Contestants face off in a no-holds barred competition to be the funniest, fastest, best-informed and possibly prettiest news junkie in New York. Plus there’s air conditioning (free) and beer (nominal charge). The next one happens July 29.

One of the current event games played at The News Distillery is “news haiku.” Each contestant has to write a haiku about a news event that week. For example, here are some haikus from last Thursday’s show.

The New York Timesreviews the Iron Mule Short Comedy Festival, a collective of filmmakers and film lovers who meet the first Saturday of every month at 92YTribeca to celebrate funny and inventive short cinema:

Have you heard the joke about the two women who share an awkward moment when they meet an acquaintance in a subway station, and one of them, rather than endure pathetic stabs at conversation, abruptly says she’s going to move to the other end of the platform? No? Well, the punch line, which involves the three of them seated on the train, has to be seen rather than heard.

That sort of “you had to be there” punch line, this one from the short movie “Broad City,” is the raison d’être of the Iron Mule Short Comedy Film Festival, a monthly screening at 92YTribeca. The festival challenges the notion that audiences prefer comedy in feature-length format or as short tales delivered by lone performers under the glare of nightclub lights.

“At a comedy show the audience is expecting a stand-up pace,” said Jay Stern, who helped create the festival in 2002. Instead, Iron Mule offers its audience several shorts interspersed with interviews with the filmmakers, as well as funny banter from Mr. Stern and Victor Varnado, who is both a filmmaker and an actor. At the end of the evening, audience members vote for their favorite short.

The lineup on Saturday is typical in that it is atypical: there is a mix of surreal animation (“Lapsus”); a music video that Mr. Stern worked on; and sketches that seem ripe to go viral (“Ad Men” and “Broad City”).